News, reviews & events in Essex.

Tag Archives: London

Myself and two of my children were invited by Cadbury UK to visit The Shard in London for the Halloween event.

Our visit was Thursday 30th October.

My daughters spotted the building before me and I was meant to be looking for it. I should have just looked up towards the sky.

Entering the building, you are met by friendly, helpful staff who direct you where to go.

Lift 1 takes you to floor 33 in a very short time. Lift 2 takes you to floor 68 equally as fast as the first lift. (6 metres a second). The rides are smooth and you feel very safe. However be prepared for some disorientation and possible ear blocking as you leave the second lift.

Floor 68 has a viewing platform and you can really see for miles. Iconic sights such as the London Eye are easy to spot. We also managed to view the amazing poppies at The Tower of London.

We then took the stairs to level 72. Our first view on this level was of the huge Cadbury’s Halloween Spider Web which took up almost one side of the Shard. The children on the level seemed to be quite interested in the web.

This level is slightly open roofed and was a little breezy when we visited. Whilst I would have liked to have looked around the platform my daughters were actually quite scared because of this so we had to go back down to level 68.

After a while we went back down in the two lifts (again not so good for the ears). The exit is through the Gift Shop which is to be expected. Again the staff were very helpful.

I would recommend a visit to The Shard. The numbers are limited so you are not rushed and can view for as long as you wish. I found the children visiting at the same time as us were interested although I am not sure how long the attention span of a younger child would last for.

On Monday 30th June 2014, I was invited to head into London to discuss the new Flexible Working Rights with Mumsnet & Nick Clegg.

Up until now, the right to request flexible working hours has only been available for carers, or people who look after children.

This has now been extended to all employees.

Tuesday’s extension of the right to request the chance to work flexibly means more than 20 million employees can now benefit.

Flexible working helps people balance their work with responsibilities, keeping more people in long term employment and enabling companies to keep hold of top talent.

It is expected the new right will be of particular interest to older workers who want to work differently as they approach retirement and to young people entering the labour market who may want take up additional training or learning while they work.

As part of the right, employees can expect their request to be considered in a reasonable manner by employers – this will be much simpler than the previous burdensome process businesses had to undergo before making a decision.

Justine Roberts, Mumsnet CEO opened the discussion by highlighting that Mums generally are seen as a burden by employers due to a number of issues (pregnancy appointments through to childcare), Mumsnet however has 40% of it’s staff on Flexitime.

Nick Clegg then began to speak about how the issues Mums face in the workplace are not just issues for Mothers but for Fathers too, Dads need the same rights as Mums. It is now time to remove the typecast from these roles.

Flexible working will allow all the people with talents to show, not just restrict to a few.

Questions were asked and the consensus was that there needs to be a cultural shift in attitudes regarding flexible working and Mr. Clegg explained that there would be nowhere to hide for those who do not wish to move with the times. Equal childcare will be available to those who choose that option.

We were also advised that babies due from April 2015 will benefit by receiving shared parental leave, again a huge step forward into making parenting & childcare equal and not ‘just a mums’ issue.